Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
No one has debated whether it's currently too strong in AoE situations (except through whataboutisms reliant on dungeons always being dogwater), but simply whether any element of flavor of its healing-per-hit should remain. I have argued it should, since it's iconic to Warrior, but at diminished returns (directly, as per a modifier after the first enemy struck, or indirectly, as by healing for a % of damage dealt).
It's a pretty common problem in game design to have the class fantasy/theme/flavor clash with balance and game mechanics, and I would typically err on the side of fantasy if that fantasy supports a cool niche. That said, you can excuse pretty degenerate gameplay with class fantasy: like should something called "assassin" be able to one-shot kill people out of stealth in a PvP game? Is a niche fantasy creates still a niche if it translates to "I'm the best at doing the thing everyone else in my category is supposed to be good at"?

Putting aside the question of why Warrior even is the signature self-healing tank in the game and not, say, the Paladin, I'd argue it would be healthier in the short term for WAR to lose it's multi-target scaling altogether. If it's balanced in AoE scenario it will be weak in single target, if it's strong in single target it will be broken in AoE. You can't really escape that problem unless, as said before, you make the multi-target scaling completely cosmetic at which you might as well just remove it.

My issue with BW isn't even that it's overpowered or that it makes Warrior the best dungeon tank by a mile. It's the self-healing arms race. Why does Holy Sheltron and Heart of Corundum need any healing at all? Why did PLD get 400p heals on Requiescat combo in 6.1? DRK is now very likely to get more self-sustain not because the job needs it to clear any content (you can MT Savage or run an expert dungeon with 3DPS as DRK already), but because other tanks have it, and other tanks have it because WAR has it in excess.

We have well meaning community videos like this one where the author says: "you can not put The Blackest Night and Bloodwhetting in the same sentence", and he isn't wrong, except that TBN is not the problem ability here. As much as tank self-sustain creates a larger problem in the game (trivializing content, healer strike, etc.), Bloodwhetting is such an extreme outlier here that was allowed to exist through the entirety of Endwalker and now early Dawntrail, it has completely skewed people's perception of what tank performance should even look like.

Yes dungeons are meant to be easy, yes 100% of the playerbase should be able to be able to clear them, but why even have the option to do single pack pulls if anyone with room temperature IQ can go on a Warrior, pull wall to wall, press two buttons and never be at risk of needing a single heal?